We Burned So Bright is the heartfelt, queer, road trip of a novel from TJ Klune, the Sunday Times bestselling author of the Cerulean Chronicles and The Bones Beneath My Skin

Husbands Don and Rodney have lived a good, long life. Together, they’ve experienced the highest highs of love and family, and lows so low that they felt like the end of the world.

Now, the world is ending for real. A wandering black hole is coming for Earth, and in a month, everything and everyone they’ve ever known will be gone.

Suddenly, after forty years together, Don and Rodney are out of time. They’re in a race against the clock to make it from Maine to Washington State to take care of some unfinished business before it’s all over.

On the road, they meet those who refuse to believe death is coming and those who rush to meet it. But there are also people living their final days as best they know how – impromptu weddings, bright burning bonfires, shared meals, new friends.

And as the black hole draws near, among ball lightning and under a cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky, Don and Rodney will look back on their lives and ask if their best was good enough.

Is it enough to burn bright if nothing comes from the ashes?


Praise for TJ Klune

‘An enchanting sequel about found family’ – The New York Times on Somewhere Beyond the Sea

‘Like being wrapped up in a big gay blanket’ – V. E. Schwab, author of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, on The House in the Cerulean Sea

I loved it. It is like being wrapped up in a big gay blanket. Simply perfect -- V. E. Schwab, author of the Shades of Magic series on The House in the Cerulean Sea
The House in the Cerulean Sea is a modern fairy-tale about learning your true nature and what you love and will protect. It’s a beautiful book -- Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse series that inspired HBO's True Blood
Full of faith in the goodness of people . . . It broke my heart with its unflinching understanding that grief never goes away, never empties, only settles into the room of your soul like a strange souvenir -- Cassandra Khaw, author of The Library at Hellebore on Under the Whispering Door
A witty, wholesome fantasy that’s likely to cause heart-swelling -- The Washington Post on The House in the Cerulean Sea
TJ Klune is a master storyteller * The Mary Sue *

TJ Klune is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door, In the Lives of Puppets, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, the Green Creek series for adults, the Extraordinaries series for teens and more. Being queer himself, Klune believes it’s important – now more than ever – to have accurate, positive queer representation in stories.